3 days in Paris (long read)

Three days in Paris (long read)

Paris is a magical city, regardless of when and how you visit it. It’s full of wonders, and full of moments that make you happy you chose to travel to this city. I spent three days in Paris in October, and I really enjoyed my time exploring the city and trying different food markets and restaurants.

I had visited Paris before, about five years ago. It was my first time, and I was keen to see as much as I could in four days. My days were full of touristy activities, from visiting the Eiffel Tower (of course, standing in a queue for ages) to visiting the Palace of Versailles. However, this time there was nothing new for me to visit, so I decided to explore the other exciting things in Paris, such as culture, vibes, neighbourhoods and of course food!

Day 1- Eiffel Tower Neighborhood

Our hotel was located just round the corner from the Eiffel Tower, so we decided to start our exploration from that neighbourhood.

I don’t know if it’s just me, or if you feel the same, but each time I see this beautiful tower, I stare at it for a couple of minutes without thinking about anything else. I never get tired of looking at this magnificent structure.

After exploring that area, it was time to find a good place to enjoy French wine and food. After a quick search, we decided to go for a traditional French restaurant in the heart of the Île Saint-Louis neighbourhood. This restaurant, called “Au Pied De Fouet“, is a tiny cute bistro that offers great food and experience. On your arrival, they welcome you with a nice glass of house red wine and a freshly baked baguette.

The menu is very simple, and only has three starters and four main courses, but you don’t need more! We picked duck confit, and of course steak, and both dishes were amazingly cooked to perfection.

I always love to leave room for dessert. We tried their famous upside-down apple pie, and it was one of the best desserts ever. The apple was well cooked, and the crumble was crunchy and tasty.

Overall, I really recommend the experience of having great French food in this cosy old-style place. They don’t have fancy-looking dishes, but they know how to cook great food!

Day 2: Montmartre and Champs-Élysées

We started our second day by exploring the Montmartre neighbourhood. I had a beautiful picture of this area from my memories of five years ago, and when we arrived, everything was as I remembered. We went straight to a bakery called “Coquelicot”, which we had heard a lot about. It’s famous for serving coffee in bowls, and for its almond croissants. Unfortunately we were a bit late for almond croissants, but the whole breakfast and the coffee was very good.

We continued our stroll by walking around the area, and climbed the hill to get to the “Basilique du Sacré-Coeur”: we entered almost every cute shop we saw on our way. We were lucky that on that weekend (8th and 9th of October) there was a fantastic food market surrounding the Basilique, and this made our day so special. We found many stalls representing different foods and wines from across France. We could try different wines and buy them by the bottle or glass. The other stalls had various types of French food, such as fresh oysters, baguettes with melted cheese, sausage and camembert melted pot.

One of the most exciting stalls was a cheese shop where we got to try lavender cheese, and it tasted like nothing I had tried before.

I just wish I could have stayed in the food market forever.

In the evening we decided to find a place for dinner. A friend highly recommended “Chez I’Ami Jean”. Although we did not have a reservation, we got lucky and they gave us a table. The restaurant was a bit pricey, but absolutely worth it. Don’t forget to leave room for dessert, because you don’t want to miss their incredible rice pudding.

Day 2: Notre Dame

We started our day with fresh croissants and pastries from one of the best bakeries we tried in our three-day tour (we tried a lot of them 🙂 ), called “Maison Privat”. If you go there, you will definitely have a chance to eat fresh, hot croissants straight from the oven. They also have various different pastries and breads.

After a great breakfast, we headed down to walk around the Louvre museum, and from there we went to Notre Dame to explore that neighbourhood. On our way to Notre Dame, we checked out a big market called “Marché Bastille”, which is a traditional street market, and is among the city’s best. You can find fresh fruit and veg, and also clothing. We managed to buy a ten-year-old bottle of red wine for only 10 euros. Take cash with you when you go there, in case you want to hunt a bargain.

After our visit to the market, we arrived at the beautiful neighbourhood of Notre Dame. We had one of the best ice creams ever in a shop called “Berthillon”. Just make sure you have at least one scoop of pistachio flavour in your ice cream.

And for the last meal, a nice baguette sandwich to finish our trip with a tasty memory!